Per una lettura giuridica del Rudens di Plauto

It is well known that Plautus comedies contain an abundance of juridical references which cover almost the whole sphere of ius. But which was the comedy writer’s real representation of law and justice? Avoiding the common approach of the legal historians (and therefore not questioning if Plautus’ works can be used to reconstruct the technicalities of the law at his time), this essay wishes to answer the question through the reading of the legal plot of the most juridical comedy written by Plautus. The main part of the study focuses on two major legal themes found in the Rudens : law used as a pretext on one side and law used as a social remedy on the other. The two dimensions are then used as an interpretative key to measure up to what stage in other comedies of the corpus (especially Persa and Poenulus), the law is used in order to deceive the others. What emerges is the image of an author who, even within the suspended and sometimes overturned dimension tipical of comedy plays, doesn’t stop considering law as a non-negotiable value.